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Sutherland & Shaw

1.
SUTHERLAND & SHAW
MANAGING CREATIVITY
If agencies are to
make best use of
the profusion of
new media, they
need to become
more open-
minded. The secret
lies in a more
generous
approach: being
open to new
insights, sharing
the brand objective
with others and
encouraging
co-creation. At the
heart of this lies
something Ogilvy
calls the ‘The Big
Ideal’ Rory
Sutherland talks
about why a more
inclusive process is
necessary, and
John Shaw
continues by
showing how this
leads to richer,
more inspiring
briefs and,
ultimately, better
solutions
What do a homicide
investigation and an
ad campaign have
in common? Rory
Sutherland explains
B
URIED ALMOST unnoticed in the
cultural treasury brought to these
shores by the beneficence of Murdoch
père et fils lies a great number of 24-hour fac-
tual and educational channels – among them
several entirely dedicated to the subject of
True Life Crime. Of these I can particularly
commend Crime & Investigation, Serial Killers’
Biography Network and Discovery Stabbings +1.
While not watching southern sheriffs
shouting at the underclass or hearing how
on-23rd-November-1987-Wayleen-Dodds-
a-24-year-old-Topeka-housewife-waved-at-
her-neighbour-as-she-left-her-home-for-
the-very-last-time, I also enjoy something
from A&E called The First 48.
In fact I like it so much I am now trying to
persuade the entire Ogilvy organisation to
reshape its processes and workings to better
reflect those of the Dade County PD. Pref-
erably all the way down to diet and dress code.
What is The First 48?
Let me first explain the premise behind The
First 48. The ‘48’ refers to the vital first 48
hours after a murder is detected. Vital
because the actions in this comparatively
brief period have a considerable bearing on
the entire course of a murder investigation
and on its chances of success. Indeed it is said
that, for homicide detectives,
‘Their chance of solving a case is cut in
half if they don’t get a lead in The First
48™. Each passing hour gives suspects
more time to flee, witnesses more time to
forget what they saw, and crucial evidence
more time to be lost forever.’
(www.aetv.com/the_first_48)
For this reason, the first 48 hours of any
investigation are a time of frenetic activity.
Manpower levels are high, information is
regularly shared and all avenues are explored.
And I mean all avenues. These people are
cops, so they naturally don’t use outlandish
terminology such as ‘integration’, ‘user-gen-
erated content’ or ‘solution neutral’, yet what
they do is a model of what we might call 360-
degree thinking. There are no assumptions
made as to where a lead may first come from:
instead countless possibilities are pursued
rapidly and in parallel. No one assumes that,
say, forensics need precede house-to-house
enquiries, or that you don’t need to interview
witnesses until you have uncovered any DNA.
You seek a lead or a breakthrough (we
might call it an insight) wherever it might
present itself. It’s as simple as that. But
instead of purely attempting to do this
through a drawn-out process of laborious
sequential logic, the detective process starts
with a sense of urgency and foment.
News of the crime in question is circulated
to a wide group of people in various police
specialisms. But the search for leads is not
confined to professionals: clever use is made
of the media, informants and indeed the
public at large – enormously increasing the
effective manpower of the organisation.
True crime, toolkits and the
Big Ideal
By RORY SUTHERLAND AND JOHN SHAW
24 Market Leader Summer 2007
Rory Sutherland is Executive Creative Director and Vice-
Chairman, OgilvyOne London, and Vice-Chairman, Ogilvy
Group UK. John Shaw is Planning Director, Ogilvy UK
and EMEA.

2.
to develop an exciting new perspective on a
brief? Especially as the new perspective could
come from almost any direction: from an
insight into the product, from the media
(bought or invented), the target audience
definition, the consumer, the mode of usage,
the brand imagery, the category conventions,
the packaging, the channel, the point-of-pur-
chase, the customer journey, the online expe-
rience. Actually, I really do mean anywhere.
As someone working for a very large
agency, this few-people-and-slow approach
has always irked me a little, if only for rea-
sons of competitive advantage. What is the
point of employing 1,200 people with
expertise across multiple disciplines if the
average brief gets exposed to only five of
them? What advantage do you thereby offer
over an agency of 30 people? Or five?
In these first 48 hours, the approach is
essentially open-source. Whereas judgement
and decision-making remains tightly cen-
tralised (it is a myth of the open-source
movement that it is highly democratic – it
isn’t) the whole purpose of the exercise is to
encourage contributions from anywhere
within or outside the force by widely sharing
details of the investigation. (The Portuguese
system seems to be a notable exception here).
To use a phrase coined by my colleague
Robyn Putter, what this process acknowl-
edges is that fermentation must come before
distillation.
The value of The First 48
It is interesting that the police proceed this
way. Not being known for over-intellectuali-
sation, those featured in the programme will
often be unfamiliar with the tenets of The
Wisdom of Crowds or Malcolm’s Gladwell’s
Blink. Fewer still will know the scientific value
of what Einstein called ‘First Insight’. Yet in a
way what they do suggests an instinctive
understanding of all three: the fact that rapid,
subconscious reactions to a problem have a
value; that collective knowledge is often
worth consulting; that how you define a prob-
lem at the outset has more bearing on your
outcome than everything else.
Above all it acknowledges that a problem
shared is a problem ... well twice as likely to
be solved. It accepts that there is a time and
a place where collaboration and shared
intent are worth more than focus.
Yet the wonder is not that they do this; it is
why we don’t. In fact the first 48 hours after
a brief being received are probably spent
doing nothing more useful than trekking to
the finance department to open a job num-
ber. And all the while time – and possibili-
ties – are ticking away.
With the single dubious exception of
brainstorming, the creative process adopted
by agencies has never really embraced the
many-people-and-fast approach to generating
first insights, preferring the model of few-
people-and-slow.
Few-people-and-slow may be the right
approach for developing and crafting cre-
ative executions. But is it really the best way
A scene from The First
48. The first 48 hours
in a murder investiga-
tion are an intense
period of collaboration
when countless
possibilities are
pursued rapidly and in
parallel: an approach
that has much to offer
when generating
advertising ideas
Market Leader Summer 2007 25
You seek a lead or a breakthrough (we
might call it an insight) wherever it might
present itself. It’s as simple as that. But
instead of purely attempting to do this
through a drawn-out process of laborious
sequential logic, the detective process starts
with a sense of urgency and foment
SUTHERLAND & SHAW
MANAGING CREATIVITY
A&E/GranadaMedia

3.
MANAGING CREATIVITY
SUTHERLAND & SHAW
Well, I can think of several reasons why
agencies have not attempted to adopt this
practice. Some more disinterested than others.
Why agencies do not work like
police forces
System addiction
Payment by the hour has placed an onus on
agencies to justify their every moment’s work
– requiring us to maintain the wholly inac-
curate pretence that all creative activity is the
product of a clearly defined, self-contained
linear process, infinitely replicable and free
of risk and uncertainty. It’s bollocks, of
course, but it seems to shut the procurement
people up.
Outdated practices
Most agency processes were devised for the
old media age, when media were scarce and
expensive. Back in 1993, when your options
were confined to perhaps four media, and
where the division between media money
and content money was immovable and
unambiguous, there was little opportunity
for challenging the status quo. Worryingly, a
lot of what is regarded as axiomatic and
unarguable in advertising is no better than a
vestige (like the human appendix) from a
previous media age. The obsession with
brevity, the belief in only one idea for a
brand, the notion that any communication
can only ever convey one thing: these are not
eternal verities but simply convenient guide-
lines for the TV and poster age.
Frankly, once your overall approach has
been decided, a large part of the creative
process does depend on small numbers of
people intensely focused on producing a
superb product (just as the later, evidence-
gathering stages of police work are the pre-
serve of specialists reporting to a small cen-
tral team). But it is wrong to conflate the
kind of structure that can produce a great
press ad with the kind that produces a great
early breakthrough.
Failure to involve the whole team
Then there is a traditional failure to under-
stand the complicated relations between the
executional and the strategic: not realising
that the process of creation is iterative, and
consists not so much of a single breakthrough
but of a series of them. This misconception
gives rise to the assumption that no junior or
executional specialists have value at the out-
set, only grand strategists. Yet, as any detec-
tive will tell you (remember Sherlock
Holmes’ ‘I am glad of all details, whether
they seem to you to be relevant or not’) it is
wrong to separate minor from major. Fred
West, Peter Sutcliffe, John Christie, Son of
Sam, Ted Bundy all were caught by beat
police performing routine duties.
Failure to place value in the whole team
We’re also beset by a freemasonic, in camera
approach to the brand; the self-regarding idea
that only a few initiates of sensationally high
intelligence and vast brand experience can
possibly contribute worthwhile ideas. Indeed
the very DNA of most brands is enshrined in
mysterious cabalistic symbols such as Brand
Onions, incomprehensible to anyone outside
the marketing fraternity and to most within it.
What has changed in the industry
and why we need to adapt
The media sphere
The greatest change of all has come in the
media sphere. Within ten years, the available
means by which we can reach consumers have
gone from scarce and expensive to abundant
and even free. How you define audiences,
whether you place a higher value on reach or
voluntary engagement, whether you target
people or moments is now all open to debate.
Progressing from brief to 30-second spot as
26 Market Leader Summer 2007
We call this a Big Ideal, and it differs from a
big idea in one crucial way – it is generous,
open and encouraging of collaboration.
It is analogous to the single clear objective
that allows a disparate group of policemen
to work together effectively – a brief that
shares its source code

4.
usual moment in a brief where logic grudg-
ingly hands the baton to magic. This is what
(to cite Hamish Pringle in this issue’s
Viewpoint) diagonal thinking is all about.
Discipline neutrality
The same approach also fosters discipline
neutrality. Within the first 48 lies that win-
dow of opportunity for approaching a brief
from a media-neutral standpoint – before it
has become defined by the language of one
discipline or another – or where lazy assump-
tions about the target audience have skewed
everything towards one medium. This helps
create fertile combinations of different disci-
plines: essential if you want to create the kind
of multi-dimensional, textured brands people
actually want to engage with.
Making it happen: the Big Ideal
Easy said. But what is needed to make this
happen? Obviously an understanding that
client briefs and issues are shared rapidly but
widely at the very beginning of any process. A
small, dedicated team – typically a planning
partner, creative partner and business partner
who, along with the client, decide direction
(decision-making – as opposed to opinion-
seeking – should never be a mass activity).
Finally, you need an ‘open-source’ brief for
your brand, something that combines both
clarity and purpose. And this is what leads us
to ‘The Big Ideal’. Something to supplant
‘The Idea’ as the orchestrating component that
gives a brand its consistency and direction.
Hence no more the language of Onions or
Brand Essences, but instead a clear appeal to
some sense of duty or higher motivation –
the kind of thing that encourages people to
cooperate with you – to help you with your
enquiries. This is, after all, the reason why
the police can still call on volunteers and
public and media support in a way that traf-
fic wardens can’t.
We call this a Big Ideal, and it differs from
a big idea in one crucial way – it is generous,
open and encouraging of collaboration.
It is analogous to the single clear objective
that allows a disparate group of policemen to
work together effectively – a brief that shares
its source code.
though on tramlines no longer holds. There
is not only the opportunity to do things cre-
atively but also to do creative things.
Top-down no longer applies
What this change in the media ecosystem
has meant is that our business simply needs
to become more collaborative and open: the
top-down approach no longer applies.
Instead what counts is your ability to co-opt
different groups in support of your brand
objectives. And the people you engage in this
endeavour now include not only different
disciplines but actually people outside the
secret society of marketing: anyone from
customer-facing staff to consumers them-
selves – even (lawdy!) the CEO. In an inter-
active world, brand building often results
from a collaborative joint venture between
the brand’s owners and its users.
Mass collaboration is now easy
The same new technology that has trans-
formed our media world also provides an
economical answer to the problem of mass
collaboration: with blogging, wikis, twitter-
ing and other collaborative tools there is no
longer a requirement for everyone to be in
the same room simultaneously; indeed there
is no requirement for the people to be on the
same time-zone, continent or even payroll.
The advantage of this approach is that
whereas the problem may be shared with
1,000 people, only those with useful contri-
butions need raise their voices.
Reframing – why the first 48?
It is only by acting very fast that you have the
opportunity to reframe a problem. We have
proved this repeatedly in experimenting with
this methodology on live briefs. Go back to a
client organisation with a radical suggestion
after 48 hours and you add value – try the same
thing after three weeks and you add confusion.
Diagonal thinking
This upfront approach re-engages media
thinking with creative thinking – on a prop-
er equal footing. And in parallel rather than
in series. The two are entirely interdepen-
dent. And it also recognises the partnership
of rationality and imagination – without that
Market Leader Summer 2007 27
SUTHERLAND & SHAW
MANAGING CREATIVITY

5.
MANAGING CREATIVITY
SUTHERLAND & SHAW
The Big Ideal: just
another tool?
John Shaw
continues ...
I
DON’T HAVE MUCH time for ‘tools’ in
general. Like most planners with a few
years under their belts, I’ve seen enough of
them to last me a lifetime. After a while, they
begin to blur together. This is partly because
so many of them begin with the word
‘Brand’. The Brand Onion mentioned by
Rory is the root vegetable of them all, but
I’ve now seen Brand Pretty-Much-
Everythings from Trees and Boxes to
Temples and Stars. Almost every globally
recognisable shape, particularly if it has reli-
gious overtones, seems destined for tooldom.
The trouble with brand tools
This unease stems from two factors derived
from that crucial zone where strategy meets
creative. First, I’ve always found it hard to
have conversations with top creative direc-
tors based around what the tool says. They
don’t seem to like being dictated to by a tree
– brand or otherwise. Of course you could
always use the tool in secret, and allow its
findings to inform regular conversation, but
in the modern collaborative all-round-the-
same-table creative environment, this is
increasingly hard (and a bit phoney anyway).
Second, I have a suspicion that there is a
poor correlation between tool use and quali-
ty of creative output, or even (scandalously)
a negative correlation. Even if the individual
tools have merit, there are some cultural fac-
tors at play that make it rare to find heavy
tooling at the heart of the greatest creative
case studies. It’s often easier to invent new
tools than it is to make the many tough deci-
sions inherent in doing the best work.
So why introduce yet another tool, the Big
Ideal? Well, first, because there are excep-
tions, of course. It would be wrong, not to
say questionable in career terms, to write off
all the tools in my own agency’s 360-Degree
Brand Stewardship, and there are definitely
some other good examples of where tools,
used appropriately, not only have consider-
able strategic impact but are actually usable
at the creative coalface.
But the real reason why we have become
very excited about the Big Ideal is that it just
seemed to make sense, to be fresh, and to be
helpful with the type of big brand marketing
and communication problems we face now.
Plus, it passed the test of ‘stickiness’ – people
seemed to want to hear about it, to interact
with it, and to try it for themselves … which
is not the case with all agency tools.
As Rory has indicated, there are some
issues where the focus on one pivotal idea is
too obsessional. It’s not that it’s unimportant,
it’s just that other things are important too,
both ‘downstream’ in execution, and
‘upstream’. It was actually in a discussion on
the need to have better ideas that I first
heard the phrase ‘Big Ideal’ mentioned in a
marketing context, by Robyn Putter the cre-
ative guru of WPP and Ogilvy.
He pointed out that great brands, with track
records of doing great campaigns, seemed to
be founded not just on ideas, but on ideals.
An ideal is ‘a conception of something in
its perfection’, which we interpreted as a sort
of desired worldview that was inherent in the
brand, either explicitly or implicitly. Most of
the brands we really admired seemed to have
some kind of worldview like this at their
core, underpinning great marketing commu-
nications and creative ideas.
These worldviews felt like they were true
to the brand’s ‘best self’, and often touched
on a cultural trend, truth or tension. They
appealed more to aspirations than to anxi-
eties; and they targeted a collective interest,
not just an individual benefit.
Final thoughts
In practice the Big Ideal has been very help-
ful. It does seem to answer Rory’s desire for
a way of working that encourages collabora-
tion. From PR to retail activation, we hope
to work with specialists who have good ideas
of their own. So imagine how demotivating
it is, and indeed wasteful, to give them
assignments that ask them to ‘execute’ an
idea in PR or ‘take it down’ into activation –
28 Market Leader Summer 2007

6.
not the answer to life, death and the uni-
verse. It needs to be accompanied by many
other things. It doesn’t take away the need
for good judgement or great talent through-
out the unpredictable path of bringing great
work to fruition. It’s not a panacea, only a
tool. But – to return to the analogy of late-
night TV, we do think it just might be a
chainsaw among choppers. ❦
Rory.Sutherland@ogilvy.com
John.Shaw@ogilvy.com
often accompanied by rigid executional
guidelines that may or may not be appropri-
ate for that particular discipline. ‘We’d
rather work with a Big Ideal’ is a common
refrain.
The ultimate test, of course, is the work
that is based on Big Ideals, and for that you’ll
have to watch this space, but if the enthusi-
asm of various types of creative people is any
guide, it will have more beneficial impact
than most agency tools.
Finally, a health warning. The Big Ideal is
Market Leader Summer 2007 29
SUTHERLAND & SHAW
MANAGING CREATIVITY
The Big Ideal in practice
To explore this, we developed a short form of words that could potentially encapsulate a brand’s ‘Big Ideal’ – a simple
sentence-completion exercise: ‘Brand xxx believes the world would be a better place if ...’.
We liked this form of words because it was fairly simple (I could
imagine using it with a creative director without any glazing of the
eyes), but at the same time allowed for some texture and richness to
be conveyed. Simple, but not simplistic. Here are some examples, for
illustration purposes only (no trade secrets).
Coca-Cola has optimism at the core of its brand, and a renewed focus
on that in recent years, originally in Latin America and subsequently
globally, has helped the brand to find a powerful voice again. Perhaps
Coke’s Big Ideal might be something like: ‘Coca-Cola believes the world
would be a better place if we saw the glass as half full, not half empty.’
There also seems to be a Big Ideal implicit in adidas’s ‘Impossible Is
Nothing’ campaign and mantra. Something like ‘adidas believes the
world would be a better place if people ignored the notion of failure.’
Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty has been a huge success. It too seems based on an underpinning Big Ideal along the
lines of ‘Dove believes the world would be a better place if women were allowed to feel good about themselves.’
Persil/Omo seems to be possessed of something similar at its core – that the world would be a better place if children
were allowed to play in it.
Enamoured of this construct as we were, one of the early questions was how noble the ideals needed to be. The
answer seemed to be that the concept would quickly become dull and undifferentiated if all Big Ideals were about
world peace. Some great brands appeared to have Ideals that, while not exactly noble, were nevertheless Big.
Miller High Life successfully reversed its apparently terminal decline through a strong apparent belief that the world (or
at least the US) would be a better place if men could be men again. The brand’s communications were not exactly
politically correct, but they benefited from a strong worldview that tapped into a cultural tension about the decline of
manhood in America.
And Lynx (or Axe) has been fabulously successful on the clear belief that the world would be a better place if men
could have sex very, very easily. This is a pretty Big Ideal when you’re a zitty14 year old.
From this we concluded that it could still be useful to think about Big Ideals even when a brand was not inherently ‘noble’,
and that although Big Ideals should be widely interesting, that was not the same as appealing to absolutely everyone.